Some producers at the BBC must be lamenting their determination to produce a show at all costs. They listened to the entertainment industry mantra that the show must go on and now look where they are. The latest scandal to engulf this revered institution — at least six new instances of faking competition winners — has led to the suspension of a number of production staff with more expected to follow.
The show must go on. It is almost law. But why? It’s an idea I have long found difficult to accept. It’s part of a notion about the supremacy of art that it should somehow transcend the essential fragility of human life. The actor who has just learned of the death of a loved one will still go on stage and perform — and be applauded for putting his emotions aside. The dancer whose child is sick will come on stage and dance an almost perfect swan lake — and be applauded for her professionalism.
And it goes beyond art. The foreign correspondent whose wife is undergoing an emergency operation will not take the first flight home but will go live on air on schedule and do his job — because that is what he is expected to do. The footballer whose first child is being born will miss this once-in-a-lifetime event because not playing the match would be letting the side down.
And the same happens in the corporate world. We have reached a stage where our professional lives are expected to take precedence over our personal needs. Perhaps that has always been the case but it strikes me that today the pressure is greater. Competition and job insecurity mean that people feel increasingly caught in an unforgiving professional environment where showing weakness or vulnerability is simply not an option. It’s a case of the survival of the fittest. It also implies that there is no room for errors. You are required to do whatever it takes to keep the show going — even if this requires cheating or deception. Failure is unacceptable, the costs are too high.
I concede that there are times when an event is so important that all else should be put aside. But this is hardly the case in this instance, quite the opposite.
In today’s television there are two contagious diseases: The first is the popularity of so-called reality television shows which now fill our screens from London to Riyadh and the second is the increasing recourse to phone-in competitions.
A competition — even if you didn’t have to pay a premium rate phone call to take part — is already a form of media prostitution. Can’t get viewers by giving them interesting content? Then bribe them and seduce them with the chance to win something. The advent of premium rate phone lines takes this one step further by turning this into a revenue-making exercise. And these phone-in competitions make big bucks; it’s little wonder they have become de rigueur.
The BBC is a public service broadcaster and should have been above all that. In fact — and perhaps this makes it worse — several of these phone-ins where the results were faked were for events raising money for charity. What I find both sad and redeeming is that they did not fake results for personal advantage; they did it because they panicked. Faced with a technical fault or a failure to receive correct answers, they opted to pretend all had gone well rather than admit failure. It was deception and it is a grave breach of trust, but it is a symptom of the times.
Consider the producer on children in need. It is the biggest event in the BBC calendar. They are auctioning off a prize for charity, one of those celebrity items that has people scrambling for their phones. But there is a technical hitch and genuine callers can’t get through. What do you do? The correct answer is to announce to your public that there is a technical hitch. The actual answer is that the producer under pressure opted to broadcast the names of fictitious winners.
Phone-in competitions are in my view a scam. It is gambling by another name. People who would never dream of entering a casino or of placing a bet would happily pay a premium phone call that places their name in a hat to win a prize. Yes they will be asked to answer a question in order to win their place in the draw but that is just for show. The answer to the question is usually so obvious as to be embarrassing; it is nothing more than a formality and a way to keep you on the phone long enough to make it pay.
Perhaps this latest scandal is a good thing. If even the BBC has faked the results of phone-ins then surely other networks must have done so too. The BBC is synonymous with trust. If these revelations end up deterring people from taking part in phone-ins, then maybe the producers who faked the results on their show have done us all a favor.
